Workshop Report An automatic text message with information on local victim support when you cross a border. A ‘victim bible’ in every hotel room. A dedicated expert/coordinator who manages cross border victim cases in each victim support organisation as part of an international network within the VSE. These are but a few of the many ideas the participants came up with after being challenged to think of at least 10 simple but brilliant ideas to improve cross border support for cross border victims. The workshop was part of the cross-border victims series but had in fact a dual objective: a practice in creative knowledge sharing (elaborating on some ideas presented during the keynote ‘A house of knowledge for a learning community) in service of the improvement of cross border victim support. Which is in fact a major challenge for Victim Support Europe and the individual EU member states and national victim support organisations.

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Workshop Report
An automatic text message with information on local victim support when you cross a
border. A ‘victim bible’ in every hotel room. A dedicated expert/coordinator who manages
cross border victim cases in each victim support organisation as part of an international
network within the VSE. These are but a few of the many ideas the participants came up
with after being challenged to think of at least 10 simple but brilliant ideas to improve
cross border support for cross border victims.
The workshop was part of the cross-border victims series but had in fact a dual objective:
a practice in creative knowledge sharing (elaborating on some ideas presented during the
keynote ‘A house of knowledge for a learning community) in service of the improvement of
cross border victim support. Which is in fact a major challenge for Victim Support Europe
and the individual EU member states and national victim support organisations.
There is not an exact number of cases of cross-border victimisation in Europe available,
but it must concern millions of victims. Dutch researchers identified in 2015 a number of
117.000 Dutch citizens who fell victim during a stay abroad, and 20.000 foreigners who
reported a crime to the Dutch police. Extrapolate these numbers to a European scale and
an estimation of millions of victims is not farfetched.
The EU Directive does not discriminate between resident and non-resident victims as far as
victim’s rights and corresponding government obligations are concerned. But, as many
victim stories and a recent VSE study illustrate, it is far from easy to exercise your rights to
the full and receive all necessary support and compensation when you are victimised
abroad. To give an example: there is an international helpline for cross-border victims
(116006), but is operational in only 8 member states… And there is no structure of protocol
to refer and transfer victims between the different victim support organisations.
VSE identified a number of challenges concerning cross border victims

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In the workshop it was decided to focus on the last issue: cross-border referral and
collaboration between victim support organisations. What is needed to improve cross
border referral and collaboration?
Efficient information exchange: for example the immediate and accurate provision
of the contact details of victims to local and foreign support organisations, so that
support can be offered actively after victims return home, or that family members
can be informed as soon as possible and can receive support.
‘Warm’ transferral between organisations: not sending a victim home with the
telephone number of the local victim organisation on a piece of paper, but an
active transfer (‘handover’) of clients and relevant information between the local
VS organisation and VS organisations abroad.
Long term and long distance follow-up: for instance, who is going to inform the
victim of the criminal proceedings, who is going to provide emotional and practical
support during the trial abroad? Who can intervene on behalf of the victim when
his rights are not respected? Who monitors the recovery process?
People usually assume it takes a long time to solve complex problems and that it involves
brainstorm sessions, research and analysis as well as endless discussions. But it is actually
quite possible to generate feasible, effective and relatively simple solutions in a very short
period of time, let’s say 15 minutes. The might not solve the problem in it’s entire
complexity, but will definitely produce smaller or bigger improvements to the current
situation. It requires nothing more than the combined brainpower of people dedicated to
solving this problem. So as a working format a kind of pressure-cooker human
supercomputer model was applied. And in just 15 minutes 4 groups of 4-5 participants
managed to come up with a respectable number of pretty good ideas. They are presented
in the boxes on the next page.

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Team 1
Index of information about what each VS does + provisions for compensation, and
who to contact. Easily accessible for all members (to facilitate referrals)
Awareness of who has responsibility for translation and support victims to
demand this.
Sharing and documenting stories and experiences of cross-border crimes of what
went wrong/right to share with our governments. (organizing a feedback loop)
Team 2
Ensure that 116006 has an underlying cross-border VS network: 1
expert/coordinator in each VS to manage cross-border cases, VSE protocol: how
to deal with cross-border referrals
Proper documentation/institutional memory casuistic documentation of cases
(casemanagement system)
Make info accessible through different sources and get 116006 number visible and
known
o Leaflets, adverts, business card
o Promotion via insurance companies, travel agencies
Victim awareness training for staff of insurance companies, embassies plus a
system of periodical audits/evaluation to check performance vis-a-vis cross-
border victims
Team 3
Information (f.e. info card) about what to do and where to go when you are
victim abroad, dispersed by
o Lonely Planet/ travel guides
o Trip advisor (and other booking sites)
o Air BnB
o Insurance companies
o Travel agencies
Warm referral/handover requires a contact person (liaison) and commitment
VSE as hub in network of local victim support organisations (for referral and
exchange of practices/knowledge)
European Knowledge Centre: post concerns of victims. Annual meetings to create
a learning loop practice knowledge practice etc.
Team 4
Inform during selling/buying process of travel arrangements and/or
accommodation (analogue to medical insurance)
Victim support ‘bible’ in every hotel room mentioning telephone no, App, email
address
Standard text message when crossing border (VS details) comparable to text
message of mobile phone provider
112 puts you through to 116006
In ticket price of flights a % for repatriating bodies deceased travellers is
included
Use infrastructure of ATM for providing language support and translation.
How to we proceed from here? Who will take care of these idea and make an effort to
apply them – at least a few of them? The first step is to share these ideas with a broader

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public that has an interest in solving this issue as well. Each Victim Support organization
that wishes do to so, can start today with some of the suggestions presented here. For
example by contacting national travel and insurance companies, hotels and tourist
agencies and inviting them make information for cross-border victims a part of their
communication. But some solutions need international collaboration and coordination. So
this workshop report will be shared with the staff and executives of Victims Support
Europe. The workshop participant’s challenge was to come up with 10 solutions. VSE’s
challenge is to carry them to the next level.